Gonzaga University - Spires Yearbook (Spokane, WA)

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It WHW The academic year-two semesters-250 days, a short time in 'the life of a student but ever so important for his development. The year begins its work with registration when it pulls the student from his summer stupor and throws him into ci malestorm of deci- sions, an eternity of lines, and an infinity of forms. The year grabs hold of the timidly outstretched hand of the freshman and leads him into a mad world of orientation sessions and initiation pranks, of cruises on Lake Coeur d'Alene and the awkward dances that inaugurate the social season. The timid grip grows into a grasp of strength and assuredness as the freshman is pulled further and further into the spectrum of the college experience. What first was frightening becomes familiar and the initial apprehension gives way to exuberance and excitement. The upper classman greets the year as an old friend that will bring with it the excitement of the first kegger and the pleasure of comparing summer experiences with roommates and friends. The year holds forth the promise of the joy of an intramural victory and the satisfaction of mastering organic chemistry. The year also promises its share of sadness along with the joy and excitement. There is the despair of the first poor exam and the anxiety of neglected assignments. There is the burden of new re- sponsibilities to parents to teachers, to self. There is the emptiness of the defeat that must come sometime, in the classroom, on the playing field, perhaps in the heart. V Bitterness and joy, happiness and defeat, all help to make the year what it is: a formative process that turns aspiration into achievement, that replaces impulse and confusion with maturity and understanding, a process that opens to the student a new and challenging world-the world of the adult. i Tom Ti lford

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V 4 It Qilnineraitg To the baffled freshman cmd the bitter cynic, a university may appear to be a building-complex in which the dubious means of required courses, basketball games, and assorted parties are supposed to educate, but to the more experienced Collegian, a uni- versity is much more than that. lt is, in essence, a group of people who gather together to think, to discuss, and to learn-a commu- nity united in a mental exchange of questions and of answers- and attempts at answers. The real members of such ci community are extremely interested in, even dedicated to, probing into prob- lems, hunting for at least temporary solutions to the whys of people and of things, and learning how to apply these whys and these solutions to the world at large. A university is a dynamic being-always changing, always growing or decaying. To insure its stability, its growth and develop- ment, its responsibility to others outside the university - and a large responsibility that that is-someone must watch over it and safe-guard its well-being, must nurture what is good and prune away what is bad. This is the role of the administration. Painful though this facet of a university may be to be absolute idealist, we all must admit its necessity, and even desirability, if any university is to function as anything more than an informal discussion group floating from place to place with no goal in mind. This is what we mean when we speak of Gonzaga University: a group of people working together to learn how to live in the world in which we find ourselves, to learn how to live as successfully and completely with each other as possible. Mike Preston t